IGNORANCE: The Wednesday Word #WednesdayWisdom
INTRO: Today’s word has a cameo appearance in Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. Today’s word also could be the main reason you don’t have what you want in your life. Today’s word is additionally used as a weapon by the manipulative and has been confused by generations as bliss. If you don’t have control of this word, it is costing you your life…
WORD: Ignorance (noun)
DEFINITION of Ignorance:
- the state or fact of being ignorant
- lack of knowledge, education, or awareness
- lack of knowledge or information.
“he acted in ignorance of basic procedures”
ETYMOLOGY of Ignorance:
Ignorance is a noun, a state of being that comes from the adjective, root word ignorant which also means lacking knowledge or awareness in general; uneducated or unsophisticated.
Latin roots has the i.g.n. part broken down like this
“in” meaning not and “gno” meaning know. So to ignore means to not know. And this is neutral. Sometimes we just don’t know. Other times there is intentionality behind it too.
Ignorance: The Wednesday Word ACTION IDEAS
The action idea I want to give you comes from my new friend Shannon Lee in her book “Be Water, My Friend” where she has been taking me on a deep dive of her father Bruce’s philosophy and views on life and living. I’m loving this book by the way. But on page 68 she says this…
There are clues in the word ignorant itself, which is rooted in the word ignore. What are you ignoring in life? What thoughts keep nagging at you that you push away? What feelings come back again and again that you shove down and deny? What patterns keep playing over and over in your life?”
So I ask you, challenge you, to what degree is ignorance a choice in your life? What would you like to create for yourself and in your life? What do you not know about it and perhaps even more importantly, what do you already know about it that you are ignoring, choosing ignorance, because there is a truth you don’t want to face and so you opt for the illusion of bliss rather than confront the reality that if you want to create something better in your life you will have to get and be better.
